Fly higher by proving your great color printing

By
IPP Desk
-
120
Fly higher by proving your great color printing

For the first time since its launch in 1994, the WAN-IFRA’s International Color Quality Club now open to all newspapers and magazines. The worldwide quality printing competition, 2018–2020, now includes magazines printed in sheetfed offset, heatset or gravure and applications are open until 31 December 2017.

Printing higher-value products and periodicals has become a global trend. From Canada to Australia, newspaper printers are bringing the production of magazines into their portfolio. With the current industry trends, it was only logical to include magazines in the International Color Quality Club in WAN-IFRA’s bi-annual competition. In the last decade, newspapers from India have generally been the most numerous member of the ICQC apart from German news publishers.

With the incoming competition, the International Color quality Club is open to the following categories of participants:

  • Newspapers that print according to coldset standard (ISO 12647-3)
  • Newspapers using dryers or UV systems
  • Newspapers with exceptional production conditions (tinted or dark paper, flexographic printing, inkjet printing, etc.)
  • Magazines printed in sheetfed offset, heatset or gravure

Registration is now open for the next session 2018–2020. Early registrants benefit from a free Pre-Check in the autumn of this year. Publications from Belgium, Brazil, Colombo, Finland, Germany, Malaysia and Panama are already registered. The next test period will run under the motto ‘Fly higher by proving your great color printing’ from January through March 2018. Results will be announced in June, and club members will be honoured in October 2018 at the IFRA World Publishing Expo in Berlin.

About the International Color Quality Club
Once every two years since 1994 the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, WAN-IFRA, has offered newspapers worldwide an opportunity to demonstrate their colour printing excellence by organising a print-quality competition. The International Quality Club is an initiative powered by WAN-IFRA’s World Printers Forum.

Newspapers that succeed in qualifying for inclusion in the list of the world’s best printers can draw on this distinction to optimise their work processes, motivate their personnel, improve their standing among their readers, and impress demanding advertising customers. The list of winners announced in June 2016 for the period 2016-2018 is available at the following link: www.wan-ifra.org

Successful newspapers and magazines are awarded membership for a two-year period in the exclusive club of top-quality titles. The world contest is based on objective measurement and the judgement of international industry experts. ISO printing standards are the foundation of the evaluation. Club membership is open to all companies that show they can produce high quality publication consistently over a time period of three months (January through March 2018). Achieving a given number of points is all that is needed for attaining membership in the exclusive Color Quality Club.

Registration is open until 31 December 2017. Test prints will runt from January through March 2018. You will receive an individual performance report after each competition month. The new club members for the period 2018–2020 will be confirmed in June 2018. They will be awarded during the World Publishing Expo 2018 (Berlin, 9 to 11 October 2018).

Contact and Inquiries For more information visit www.colorqualityclub.com or contact Manfred Werfel +49 69 24 00 63-281 (Manfred.Werfel@WAN-IFRA.org) or project manager Prabhu Natrajan +91 44 42 11 06 40 (N.Prabhu@WAN-IFRA.org).

2023 promises an interesting ride for print in India

Indian Printer and Publisher founded in 1979 is the oldest B2B trade publication in the multi-platform and multi-channel IPPGroup. While the print and packaging industries have been resilient in the past 33 months since the pandemic lockdown of 25 March 2020, the commercial printing and newspaper industries have yet to recover their pre-Covid trajectory.

The fragmented commercial printing industry faces substantial challenges as does the newspaper industry. While digital short-run printing and the signage industry seem to be recovering a bit faster, ultimately their growth will also be moderated by the progress of the overall economy. On the other hand book printing exports are doing well but they too face several supply-chain and logistics challenges.

The price of publication papers including newsprint has been high in the past year while availability is diminished by several mills shutting down their publication paper and newsprint machines in the past four years. Indian paper mills are also exporting many types of paper and have raised prices for Indian printers. To some extent, this has helped in the recovery of the digital printing industry with its on-demand short-run and low-wastage paradigm.

Ultimately digital print and other digital channels will help print grow in a country where we are still far behind in our paper and print consumption and where digital is a leapfrog technology that will only increase the demand for print in the foreseeable future. For instance, there is no alternative to a rise in textbook consumption but this segment will only reach normality in the next financial year beginning on 1 April 2023.

Thus while the new normal is a moving target and many commercial printers look to diversification, we believe that our target audiences may shift and change. Like them, we will also have to adapt with agility to keep up with their business and technical information needs.

Our 2023 media kit is ready, and it is the right time to take stock and reconnect with your potential markets and customers. Print is the glue for the growth of liberal education, new industry, and an emerging economy. We seek your participation in what promises to be an interesting ride.

– Naresh Khanna

Subscribe Now

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here